The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-10-23
DRAMATIC AND LYRIC.
Nym Crinkle's Views ON
Dandy Dick,
WITH OTHER PLAYHOUSE CHAT
Amusement or Instruction? - Cri-
tique of Days Opening
Night-NOtes.
WITH OTHER PLAYHOUSE CHAT

ance by the distinguished theatrical
writer Nym Crlnkle.
This week Crinkle leaves our Geneve,
and takes up his pen to write of Dandy
Dick land a good many other things er,
passanO, the new English comedy,
selected by Mr.. Daily Tor his new sea
son. He discouTseS in the following
yein:-
Mr.. Pinero's eccentric comedy at
Days Theatre is, believe, generally
accepted as a bad play well done.
It's not very disparaging 10 man
ager to say that one of ten plays pro-
duced is bad. But it is sign OF a
healthy sentiment in a community
when the success of manager does
not condone his mistakes ofjudgment.
Dandy Dick is not worth discussing
seriously, except from the point of view
of morality. 1t is almost as fragrant
an aesthetic mistake as the wretched
stuff in which Mrs, Langtry is now
making money.
a man cannot even write a one-act
farce thout due regard to th
true and the false, and the measure of
his works beauty will be to the dis
corning mind the measure of his works
truth.
We have been met everywhere by the
rather pathetic assurance that while
As in a Looking Glass is a worthless
play, it nevertheless makes money. AS
if worthlesSneSs was redeemed by pOpu-
10 NJ
tune in play making that to be success
full one m st be cheap and nasty.
hold, and have ever held, that it is
such puerile and abominable sentiments
added TO such puerile and abominable
plays that divorce the worthy art of
the stage from the great conservative
good nse and good taste of the COM
munity.
In large city there will always be
g eat class of idle, thoughtless, happy
go-lucky men and women who are the
ephemera on TIE edge of real life. They
live from hour TO hour gratifying their
appeIies and their vanities. their
jaded pulses must be stirred by impro-
priety and startled by excess. That the
verdict of these men and women upon
the essentials of conduct or the ele-
mental principles OF art are worth a
snap of ones fingers, do not believe
But they I'LL theatre sometimes, and
their hippant approval passes for YER
dict.
This appears to have been the case
with AS in Looking Glass. But it
cannot be said to be the case with Dandy
Dick
There is a wide line between the
work of Mrs. Langtry and that
of Mr.. Daily. I cannot keep re-
garding her as in some sort ephemeral.
A few more such plays as this of A,
in Looking Glass, and the veil of con
sderate fOrgetfulness will be thrown
oyer her by the men and women who
make up the solid bulk OF the commun-
ity, and who do not care to discuss art
from the side of its glIttering improprie-
ties.
L was talking with Mr.. A. N. Palmer
the other DAY, and he, like hundreds of
others who have had their attention
directed to the motiveless and purpose
less character of such plays as Nj |
Mansfeld's gloomy aIlegOry and |
Pinero's scofing irony, fell 10 discuss
ing the ject of the theatre, and he |
announced once more that it was Ito |
have heard this so often that I am |
inclined to believe this is the one in |
al quate fallacy that is responsible for |
most of the middle and all of the mon
strosities.
Amuse whatP
Certainly not the base and the ignor-
ant and the lawless
But they are IN all theatre audi |
ences, and are the loudsst and most I
1t is quite possible to assemble a
crowd in ten minutes on any street
corner who will be amused by cruelty
and thrilled by violence.
l was in Broad street the other day
when it was most crowded. An ele-
gantly dressed clerk, with soft, silky
came out of a store.
house with wire rat-trap in his hand.
The porter of the establishment had
caught a rat. This young man ran
down to the curb with the Gagged animal
and called to number of his acquaint-
ances. They gathered round him. The
porter brought him out a can OF tur-
pentine. They poured it through
the wires on the helpless animal,
and one of them, touched
match to him and opened the cage.
Then a shout of exultation went up
from bankers, brokers and small boys
rs JnS llJIlO UlG VI ll0 Idu WIdppSu LII
flame and died writhing in the street.
This was amusement.
And the young man went back with a
look of animation that belongs to an
amuser.
There isn't a man or woman who
reads this account of the occurrence
who doesn't feel instinctiveIy tina. such
amusement ought to be curbed under
aw.
And there ought not to be man or
woman OF intelligence who does not
know that wherever there have been
from a rat bait up to a
royal opera, there has been curb set
by good taste and good sense upon the
cruel instincts and The heartless stu
oidity of amusers.
The point ia here: To amuse is not
the license of the theatre, but the limi-
alton. 1t must smuse under law. For
amusement can be made as vile as some
iind OF instruction, and as pernicious
dare say incest and the C9sarean
operation would smuse certain people.
TAa records Of a Pagan drama SHOW
nat they have.
PeCk-s Bad Boy has shown that pre- I
cocioUs yulgaritV, using a father as q